


The Other Side of the Table

by Leaving_Storybrooke



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Gen, Mental Institutions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-17
Packaged: 2018-12-02 11:41:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11508693
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leaving_Storybrooke/pseuds/Leaving_Storybrooke
Summary: Emma visits Henry at the Storybrooke Sanatorium after the Black Fairy's curse leaves the boy a patient there. In the lead up to breaking him out, Emma gives her farewell tour to her loved ones living in cursed Storybrooke and prepares herself for her last battle.





	1. Chapter 1

Henry sat in front of her looking like the ghost of the happy, confident boy she had last seen. He was thinner, his face drawn, making his prominent cheek bones protrude like that of a skeleton and giving him the look of a boy haunted. His hair was shorter and messier, and he hunched into himself, concaving his back as if he were trying to make himself as small as possible. 

When he noticed her though, his eyes still ignited with that twinkle he reserved just for her. 

"Mom!" He said as he jumped up to greet her. 

"Hey, kid." Emma faked a look of happiness. The sight of Henry looking so pale and restless scared her but she didn't want to alarm the boy. She wrapped her arms around him and was startled by how little space he took up. 

"What are you doing here? You said you couldn't come til this afternoon." He said, as he led her over to an unoccupied set of tables and chairs. His grasp on her forearm did not falter even once they were sitting down. 

"Things changed, kid and I couldn't wait to see you. I really want to show you something." 

She pulled the beloved Storybrooke from her handbag and as soon as her son saw what she held, his eyes went wide and his grip on her loosened. Instead her moved to rub his right arm, going to some effort to keep his sleeve down. 

“Mom, What are you doing?! You-you can’t bring that here.” His eyes shifted around nervously, shoving the book back into the duffle bag and looking over his shoulder, making sure that nobody had seen what his mom had smuggled in. 

“Oh geez, mom. What were you thinking? If a nurse or worse my mom saw that they’d never let me see you again.” 

“Your mom – Regina? Is she here?”

“Who’s Regina? Fiona, mom. My other mom’s name is Fiona.” Henry looked at her, his eyes full of concern. “Are you feeling okay, mom?”

“Yeah, I’m great, kid. Um, Henry, do you mind telling me about the last few years. What happened? When did you come to…this place?” 

The look of concern was still deeply etched onto her son’s face, despite that he nodded his head. Once again, his right hand rubbed over his left and it took everything inside of Emma to resist the mom urge to pull her son’s sleeve up and look at what he was hiding. 

“So, you know, I uh, I ran away to Boston to find you and I brought you here to Storybrooke to – to you know, break the curse.” He stopped and swallowed deeply. “Of course, there was no curse.” 

The fourteen year old boy’s eyes filled with tears. Emma reached over the table and rubbed a comforting circle over Henry’s shoulder. The need to cry pricked at her own eyes. Her chest weighed heavily and her throat constricted. She hated seeing him like this, a mess of a boy fighting his own demons, worse than magic. Noticing how upset she was, Henry slumped back a little but continued talking. 

“So you were going to leave and- and I didn’t want that. So I-I poisoned myself. The doctors were able to save me, but it was just the start.” His eyes drifted down to his arm again. “I kept hurting myself. The doctors say it was to-to get your attention.” Seeing how Emma winced at that Henry raised his hand to her “butitwasn’tyourfaultmom, I was sick. You and mom talked and decided if-if-if I didn’t get help I’d end up dead so here I am. And it is getting better, mom. If I take my medication and make the effort to participate in group then I usually have a really good week but-but, mom, I don’t think I am ready to see the book again. I don’t think I can do it.” 

Emma held Henry’s hands in her own. She rubbed her thumb on her son’s palms, the repetitive motion bringing comfort to both of them

Through the tears, Emma forced her voice to strengthen. 

“Henry, kid, no that isn’t true. That isn’t how it went, at all. You were right. Storybrooke was cursed but I broke that curse when I kissed you. Then we- you, me, my parents, our whole family – we had so many adventures with magic and –“

Instead of bringing comfort to the boy, Emma watched as her son started crying, rocking himself back and forward. Her words fell to the ground, the hope they had held crumbling in a single moment. Emma stopped talking and rushed to Henry side. She kneeled on the floor, much like she used to do when Henry was ten and this was the only way they could see eye to eye, and hugged her son closely as he sobbed into her shoulder. 

Emma rocked them both back and forward. She was unable to make heads or tails of her own emotions. She knew this was all fake, a curse. But while the memories that made her son cry so much were not real, the boy in front of her was. This was Henry. Not some wish world version, but her Henry, and this is what could have happened if she never broke the curse. She had to save him. She just had to.

“I do hope I am not interrupting.” Said a high, British voice, doing exactly what she pretended to want to avoid. 

Emma turned to look at the person who had broken the moment between her and son. Standing in front of her, dressed like a Regina knock off, was the black fairy, smiling as arrogantly as ever. Behind her, Henry wiped his eyes clear. 

“H-hi mom.” He said weakly, as Emma continued to shoot a dirty glare at the Stiltskin matriarch. 

“Hello, sweetie. I wanted to come by and see how my darling son is going. They are treating you well, I hope.” 

Henry nodded his head at the woman. Emma did not fail to notice how quiet her son had suddenly become, even more so then he was before. 

“I didn’t expect to see Emma here. Miss Swan, your visiting schedule is clear. We can’t have you just popping in anytime and disrupting Henry’s treatment.”

Emma rose to face the Black Fairy, her fists curling at her side and her body preparing itself for a fight with every accelerated pump of blood her heart circulates.  
“Listen lady, I am about to disrupt hell of a lot more then group sessions in a second.” 

She flexed the fingers in her fist and tightened her jaw.

Fiona just smirked, her eyes sparkling with a hint of mischief. 

“Now, Emma, I don’t want us to fight the day before Henry’s big surgery. I would hate for him to go under with the last image of you being locked behind bars in your own sheriff’s station.” 

Emma whipped around to face Henry, ignoring Fiona’s threat. 

“Surgery? What surgery?”

Fiona chuckled, grabbing Emma’s focus once more. 

“Well the shock treatment, of course.” Fiona walked over to where Henry still sat and stroked the boys cheek with her hand. “The latest procedure to make my little prince all better again.” She said as the sides of her hand pushed into Henry’s cheek. “After that procedures finished, he will be all better. A totally different, healthy, boy.”

Emma grabbed the table for stability, the idea of a permanent consequence to the curses that she was so accustomed to seeing as temporary rocked her. But if Henry had this surgery, Emma breaking the curse mattered not at all. The damage to her son would be done and nothing would be able to bring him back. Her knees felt weak at the thought but Emma pushed some strength back into them. She had to break this curse but before she did that she had to break Henry out of here.


	2. Chapter 2

It took almost everything in Emma to not turn left at Appletree Drive and take the second right into the enclave of her court, where her house was situated, third down on the right side of the park. Her navy blue house, with its white picket fence and its lawn that always looked a little too close to being overgrown. The house Henry and Hook had picked out for her in Camelot. The first place that ever felt completely hers. 

This Emma had never gone to Camelot. She had never become the Dark One. And she had had no reason to stop living with Mary Margaret. No son she shared custody of, no dashing husband. Just two single ladies approaching their mid-thirties. Emma continued along Main Street until she reached Saffron Avenue and turned into the backstreet parking lot of Mary Margaret’s apartment. 

Her mother was hunched over the kitchen countertop when Emma came in. In front of her was an array of lose papers and highlighters which had stolen the school teacher’s focus. She jumped up when she heard Emma drop her bag though, allowing Emma to get a good look at the woman and take in all the ways in which she differed from the mother she knew. 

Mary Margaret’s eyes were wider, or maybe her face was just more relaxed. Something about her was softer, and lacking the spark that Snow possessed. Snow was kind and polite, but underneath the niceties there was the ever present threat that if something went wrong, if the people she loved were harmed, this woman could mess you up. Mary Margaret did not have that. She was sweet and timid and everything about her seemed to beg you not to hurt her or else she would cry. She was a woman whose only defense to the cruel world was her constant vulnerability. 

“Emma, you’re home. I wasn’t expecting you for a while. Thought I might squeeze in some lesson planning before dinner.” She nodded towards the table. “I’ll clean this mess up. You look like you need to talk.” 

Emma smiled, unsure of how to respond. The teacher handed Emma a mug filled with hot chocolate and then sprinkled a little cinnamon over the top. 

“Thanks, mo-oum.” She coughed to hide her slip up. “Thanks, Mary Margaret.” She correct herself, smiling and sighing with relief when Mary Margaret didn’t seem too concerned with the mistake. 

“So, tell me what’s wrong. Is it August? Is he still calling you and begging to get back together?” 

“No. Um, I-I haven’t spoken to August since we broke up.” Emma his her mouth with her mug, and tried to follow Mary Margaret’s line of conversation. 

“Well, that’s good. I know things between you two didn’t turn out the way you wanted them to. I hope he didn’t sour you off relationships for too long, Emma. Not every guy is like that and you deserve to be happy.” 

Mary Margaret stared at Emma with big wide eyes and Emma knew that these words were just as sincere as is if they had come from someone with all of their memories. 

“You know I missed this.”

“Missed what?” 

Emma ducked her head, surprised at how she had messed up, but still wanting to take the opportunity to speak candidly to the first friend she had had in years. 

“You and me. This.” She waved her hands between the two of them. “You know, I don’t know if I ever told you this, Mary Margaret, but before I came here I hadn’t had a friend in years. In the end, You’ve been more than just a friend to me. You’re my family. And no matter what happens in the future you will always be the first person in this town who took a chance on me when they didn’t have to.” 

Emma watched Mary Margaret through the blurry reflection of the tears welling in her eyes. She could see that Mary Margaret was clearly confused by the normally closed off blonde having such a public display of emotion. 

“Emma? What has brought this on?”

Emma shook her head to clear her thoughts and bring her back into the room. She couldn’t tell her mother the truth. The woman in front of her couldn’t possibly believe it, but if this was one of the last moments they shared before the end of Emma’s life she wanted to leave things as close to honest as possible.

“I took the day off and I went to see Henry.”

MM’s head shot up in surprise.

“Oh, how is he?” She asked, unconsciously hovering her hand over her now aching heart. 

“Bad. Fiona – She wants him to undergo a procedure, one that could have permanent consequences.”

“Can she do that?”

“I am not going to let her.”

“Emma, I love Henry too but she’s his mother-“ Mary Margaret stopped when Emma’s hand slammed on the table. 

“I’m his mother and I can’t let her hurt him.” Emma’s eyes squinted with steely determination.

Mary Margaret fell silent for a moment, considering what her roommate had told her. She looked into Emma’s eyes and, finding a strength in them that she had to respect she nodded her head. 

“Whatever you have to do, Emma, I’ll be there for you.” 

Emma smiled. 

“I know you will. You’re a good person, Mary Margaret. You deserve good things and I’ll never stop fighting for you to get that.”

“Just once I wish I could be the one fighting for you.” 

Emma chuckled dryly at that. She rose out of her seat and walked over to Mary Margaret, who echoed her movements. They met on the side of the counter, and Emma enveloped Mary Margaret but in her mind it wasn’t her roommate who she was hugging, it was her mother. She just hoped that when she died and the curse broke, Snow wouldn’t beat herself up too harshly for not doing more to stop her. 

“You don’t know how much you already have.” Emma whispered into the stiff emptiness behind her mother.


End file.
